12zrjjUXi

The LearnedSOPHIES FEAST.Whoso would lasting and eternal FameDeserve, Learn thou the Lyon Green to tame.But this before you can by Art attain,To study him to know thou must be fain;Nor is it, trust me, for a stupid fool,Nor yet for one brought up in vulgar School.I shall him therefore lively out pourtray,Lest from this banquet you go lean away.This Song I stile the Learned Sophies Feast,Prepare your self to come a worthy Guest:With Mind attentive to my words give heed,Lest you, instead of Meat, on Fancies feed.This horrid Beast, which we our Lyon call,Hath many other Names, that no man shallThe truth perceive, unless that God direct,And on his darkened Mind a Light reflect.Tis not because this Subject doth consistOf Animal Components (he that listMay well conceive) that we do therefore useThe name of Beasts; nor is it to abuseHe Readers; he whoever so doth think,With stupid Sots himself doth hereby link.But it’s because of the transcendent forceIt hath, and for the rawness of its source,Of which the like is no where to be seen,That it of them is nam’d the Lyon Green.Now listen, and I shall to you discloseThe Secret, which ties past hath like a RoseBeen hedged so on every side with briars,That few could pluck it at their hears desires.There is a substance of Metalline Race,If you the matter view, whose louring faceA Sophister would at first sight so scare,That he it to approach would never dare;The form that’s visible is very vile,And doth Metalline Bodies so defile,44